Thomas Donlan of Barron’s devotes his latest editorial commentary to the future of work in a world featuring better and better robots.
To celebrate Labor Day, the Obama administration would like to reverse all threatening trends in the labor market. The president and his Labor Department seem to believe there’s only one appropriate kind of labor market, and that’s one regimented by the federal government for the ostensible benefit of workers.
So-called basic workplace protections, such as minimum wages, overtime pay for work beyond 40 hours a week, and, of course, government’s thumb on the scale of unionization, have been going out of fashion everywhere but in Washington and a dozen or so state capitals.
But this government rejects the gig economy, which features independent contractors working task by task at rates and hours reflecting supply and demand.
We should ask how America’s displaced laborers will provide for themselves at the end of the age of labor.
If robots rise and create enormous output per unit of labor, there may well be a taxable surplus sufficient to support a welfare system that provides a birthright income at a standard of living like that earned today by a hard-working doctor. (Autodocs will replace real doctors, of course.) Most Americans would be able to choose an occupation based on satisfaction without concern for whether they can live on its salary.
Just look at the work of bloggers and podcasters around the world, most of whom receive no monetary compensation. They are on the leading edge of the new age of pay without work and work without pay. That’s how C.G.P. Grey became a media personality.
“I don’t actually like working very much,” Grey says in a podcast, “and I am constantly thinking of ways to maximize the output I can get from the minimum amount of input.”
Otherwise known as productivity, that’s what has made Americans rich in the past, and it will keep doing so in the future.
